Trying kids as kids a good move

Friday

May 24, 2013 at 6:00 AM

Clive McFarlane

The Massachusetts House of Representatives unanimously passed a bill Wednesday that would, if the Senate concurs and the governor signs it, end the practice of automatically adjudicating the cases of 17-year-olds in the adult court system.

Teenagers charged with murder in Massachusetts would still be tried in adult court, and judges would still have discretion to level adult sentences on 17-year-olds charged with serious crimes.

However, the bill, which interestingly enough is sponsored by a Republican, state Rep. Bradford Hill, recognizes the unnecessary and sometimes irreparable harm that can befall a juvenile in the adult court system.

State Rep. James O’Day, a strong advocate of the bill, has had a long history of working with adolescents, having been a social worker and youth coach prior to his legislative work.

As a social worker, Mr. O’Day would often see 17-year-olds in the adult court, being interrogated, facing jail time and having to plea bargain outside the presence of their parents.

“That didn’t make sense to me,” he said. “Over my career I have seen the many terrific things kids can do, but I also know that they can sometimes be impulsive. One bad move as a 17-year-old can have lasting consequences, especially in an adult court system which does not offer the services that are available to young people in the juvenile system.”

But that is just part of the story.

Link introducing juveniles into the adult court system to the stratospheric level of the U.S incarceration rate — about one out of every 200 adults currently behind bars, according to the Bureau of Justice Statistics. Add the frighteningly disproportionate impact of that incarceration rate on minority communities — among inmates 18 to 19 years old, black males were imprisoned at more than 9 times the rate of white males.

Consider that more than 61 percent of blacks and Hispanics in jail are 39 years old and younger, and that there are more African-American men (20 to 34 years old) without a high school diploma or GED behind bars (37 percent) than employed (26 percent), according to a report by the Pew Charitable Trusts.

Only then can you begin to get the disheartening and disgraceful full story of which many in the minority community are well aware, but which goes unnoticed or ignored by the wider community. The country’s incarceration rate was boosted by the nation’s war on drugs, which jailed thousands of Americans for increasingly longer sentences on minor drug charges. Youthful offenders were particularly targeted, according to Campaign for Youth Justice, which estimated that 250,000 children “are prosecuted, sentenced, or incarcerated as adults each year in the United States.”

The group, in a 2011 report, noted that while “African American youth represent only 17 percent of the overall youth population, they make up 30 percent of those arrested and an astounding 62 percent of those prosecuted in the adult criminal system.”

The group pointed out that youths arrested for violent crimes account for only 5 percent of all juveniles arrested each year.

“Incarcerating children in the adult system puts them at higher risk of abuse, injury and death while they are in the system, and makes it more likely that they will re-offend once they get out,” the group noted.

There are those, such as lawmakers in North Carolina, which currently tries 16- and 17-year-olds in adult court and is now trying to include children as young as 13, who still don’t get it.

Thankfully, a number of states are changing, or are looking to change their laws to ensure youths are predominantly served in the juvenile system, and that, as Mr. O’Day puts it, “is being smart on crime.”